International Brent LCOc1 crude futures were trading down 7 cents, or 0.12 percent, at $56.02 a barrel at 0722 GMT (2.22 a.m. ET) after closing the previous session up 93 cents. U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices CLc1 were down 8 cents at $53.82 per barrel after settling up 88 cents at $53.90 a barrel in the previous session.

The company has already made contractual changes that remove restrictions on reselling gas and that require Gazprom to forgo any advantage gained from making gas supplies conditional on acceptance of gas pipelines. These changes came about because of pressure from the commission and increased competition on the European energy market.

The most important challenge facing Iran and all the Iranian technical and professional elite is high recovery of coefficient, he said, adding that raising the recovery coefficient by one percent will result in 700 billion barrels or let's say seven billion barrels; seven billion barrels with an oil sold for 50 dollars per barrel means 350 billion dollars more wealth for the country.

Venezuela said on Tuesday it will cut 95,000 barrels-per-day of oil production in the New Year in fulfilment of a producers' deal to reduce global output and strengthen prices.

London Brent crude for February delivery LCOc1 was down 1 cents at $55.15 a barrel by 0335 GMT (10.35 p.m. ET) after settling up 11 cents on Friday. Oil markets were closed on Monday after Christmas at the weekend. NYMEX crude for February delivery CLc1 was up 10 cents at $53.12 a barrel, after closing at a 17-month high on Friday.

"We are also on track to hit this year an absolute record of annual gas exports, both of Soviet times and the history of modern Russia,"

Russia's output of oil products is expected to fall by about 2.5 percent in 2017 due to further work on a massive refinery modernisation programme aimed at boosting fuel quality, a deputy energy minister said.

A new deposit in Serbia’s Pannonian oil and gas basin may contain recoverable reserves of 432,000 tonnes, according to Russia's PJSC Gazprom Neft. The Idos-X-4 well was drilled to the Neogene-aged formation at a depth of 2,268-2,287 m in the Idos-Sever (Northern Idos) field.

U.S. Rig Count is down 47 rigs from last year's count of 700, with oil rigs down 15, gas rigs down 33, and miscellaneous rigs up 1. Canadian Rig Count is up 98 rigs from last year's count of 126, with oil rigs up 62, gas rigs up 31, and miscellaneous rigs up 5.

U.S. and European Union sanctions and a collapse in global oil prices have hurt the Russian economy and starved it of much-needed foreign investment.